


Trinkets

by echoalias



Series: Trinkets [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/F, Female Eivor (Assassin's Creed), Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29808942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoalias/pseuds/echoalias
Summary: Ravens, like magpies, are known for taking pretty shiny things…Aka: Eivor gifts Randvi with keepsakes from her travels.
Relationships: Eivor/Randvi (Assassin's Creed)
Series: Trinkets [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191173
Comments: 13
Kudos: 89





	Trinkets

**Author's Note:**

> So, this silly idea grew legs and ran away for thousands of words. Just what does Eivor do with her trinkets? She gifts them to Randvi! And well, the last one is a bit special :D

The gifts become a bit of a habit, after their frolic in Lincolnscire.

Or rather, they start appearing a while after that – after Eivor and Sigurd travel to Norway, and come back changed. In the snow and ice and that incomprehensible crypt, Sigurd had his eyes opened, his delirium banished. When they’d made the journey back to Ravensthorpe, he had bowed his head to Eivor, making her the new Jarlskona of the Raven Clan.

(Injured Eivor, no less. Who wound up exhausted and pained for weeks, needed Valka’s attention, and took up all of Randvi’s. But that is another story entirely).

The change in their dynamic allowed Eivor and Randvi new freedoms, ones that they had not had when Sigurd had been a prowling beast of pent up rage and crazy ideas. Now, he is accepting; has given them their blessing, even – bowing also from his marriage to Randvi, and his place in the long house.

Eivor still travels, still raids and fights, but less so. She has a warriors heart and a wild spirit, is difficult to pin down even in peace. And she is forever loyal to her clan - driven to provide for them as if it’s a physical need.

So she goes hunting to cover their feast table, and finds supplies to build them homes, and often visits their allies to help as political aide, to keep her people, her family, protected. Sometimes when she is away she will lend her axe – but normally just to fend off bandit skirmishes. England is tired of wars, for now.

On her return to Ravensthorpe, she brings Randvi keepsakes from her travels.

(Randvi could go with her, is often invited. But there always seems to be something at the settlement that gets in the way: a trade deal to help Yanli negotiate, building designs that need her eye to process, villagers asking for advice that only she’ll know the answer to. It is easier, if she remains in Ravensthorpe. For now).

Randvi keeps her Eivor-given treasures on a shelf in her room, just across from the map table, so that when she is at an impasse in her work, or missing Eivor, she can look upon them all with fondness.

The first gift is an old worn box, the hinges delicately engraved but misaligned, so that the lid is unable to close properly. Within it sits an arrowhead, to which is tied a cluster of yellow feathers. A memory from their hunt, from their day of revelry and competition and pure joy – despite the bandit ambush, and the resulting competition which Randvi had won, she wants to make clear.

The second, is a shell.

******************************

There is a shell on Randvi’s map table. How strange…

It is as big as her open hand, a spiralling shape with proud spikes, subtly striped in pale pink and white. It’s very pretty, and Randvi has never seen anything quite like it before.

She frowns at it (not that she’s not grateful, not pleased, but it’s-), sat on the alliance map, in a patch of damp.

Eivor.

It must be Eivor, because who else had the need or want to sneak into the alliance room in the middle of the night, to leave a gift such as this? Randvi only hopes the map isn’t water stained.

Yesterday it had rained all afternoon and long into the night. She’d laid awake, listening to it echo in the rafters. She’s used to the rain, by now; it comes a lot more frequently than the snowfalls of her youth, and it is because of the rain that their farmland is thriving, so she doesn’t mind. And she is lucky, she – and an irate Nali, who does not like the rain one bit – is in the shelter of the longhouse.

Eivor is not. Eivor was due to return yesterday from East Anglia. But dinner had been served, and no drengr had appeared to join them, so Randvi had gone to sleep a little worried, and been kept up by the rain until nearly morning. The weather must have slowed her down, is all…

But now there is a shell, so Eivor must be back.

Curious, Randvi picks up the shell gently, turns it over in her hands. She feels damp sand gather under her nails, drop down onto the map. The shell is smooth like glass, cool to the touch, a solid weight but fragile and delicate at the same time, edges almost translucent.

Admiration over, she goes to find the gift-giver.

Dwolfg is sat outside Eivor’s door, up and awake and waiting for his master. His master who, despite the sun being nearly at its peak in today’s annoyingly cheery blue sky, has not yet risen. Randvi peers around the doorway into the dim room.

Feared Raven-Warrior, unifier of England, new and respected Jarlskona, the Wolf-Kissed. Eivor is sprawled on her back, bundled in furs and snoring slightly. Her face is smooth and worriless, lips slightly parted – there is drool. There’s a pile of sodden clothes at the foot of her bed, and her axes and bow are haphazardly discarded about the room.

The sight still makes Randvi’s heart clench. They had woken up together more than a dozen times now, but to see such a person as Eivor so vulnerable, so peaceful, makes the breath catch in Randvi’s throat. To be let that close, to be welcomed into her gentle arms…

Randvi smiles to herself (internally giggles a little at the aforementioned drool), and leaves Eivor to rest.

She could wake her, could brush the hair from her face and kiss her good morning, but she suspects, from the puddle formed by her still wet clothes, that Eivor had arrived mere hours ago, chased by the rain. She is also all too aware of the trials Eivor faces, how she pushes herself to protect and support the clan, how often the bags under her eyes are too dark. So Randvi goes back to her rooms, runs her fingers across the shells polished surface and wonders where on the map it had been found.

A few hours pass before Eivor pads into the alliance room, dishevelled and mostly still asleep. She’s barefoot and wrapped up in a hefty fur over her loose tunic, legs bare and uncaring of the chill. Her hair is more out of it’s braid than in, there’s a smudge of dirt on the side of her arm she must have missed when washing.

Around a stifled yawn, she says, huskily: "Good morning".

"Good afternoon." Randvi replies, a grin on her face - which grows as Eivor blinks in surprise and glances back at the longhouse bright with sunshine. The warrior’s smile turns a little lopsided, disbelieving and embarrassed.

"Oh." She says, simply – the poet in her not yet awoken - before turning back to Randvi with a little more sparkle in her eyes.

Randvi returns the look as Eivor joins her at the alliance table. She stands close, all but leans on Randvi as she looks upon the notes the red head had been working on, lets out a subconscious sigh of contentment. Randvi’s heart does that annoying but lovely fluttering thing it often does around Eivor – this feels too much, but it is amazing - and she wraps her arm around the other woman's waist, for support against the heaviness of her exhaustion.

"Have you eaten?" She asks. Eivor shakes her head - not since the morning before, apart from a few fistfuls of berries eaten on the back of her horse on the move. She hadn’t had time; hadn’t wanted to stop. Wanted to be here.

Luckily, Randvi had suspected as much. Gently stepping away, she retrieves the honeyed bread sat on a plate on a nearby table – a special request put in at the bakery earlier this morning, still warm. Eivor’s glazed eyes become instantly focused, and light. She dives for it ravenously and without any manners, much to Randvi’s laughter.

"I like the shell." She says with a grin, after the warrior has devoured a thick slice, fingers and lips left sticky and sweet. In a minute Randvi is going to kiss it all away, but for now, she relinquishes the urge and lets Eivor eat. Eivor looks up at Randvi unabashed, grin smug – as if she knows exactly Randvi’s plan. She licks a trail of honey from her wrist, and Randvi has to swallow.

"Hold it to your ear." The warrior says, gobbling another mouthful, and motions to the shell now at the corner of the map table.

Randvi is bemused by the request, squints at Eivor sceptically. She reaches for the shell despite this, moulding her fingers around the spikes before lifting it up. “Like this?”

Eivor nods, mouth too full of breakfast for words. Her grin spreads as she watches Randvi’s eyes widen, her jaw slacken.

It sounds exactly like the sea.

***************

Eivor ends up with a snotty, draining sickness after her stunt riding through the endless rain. Randvi forces her to stay in bed for at least one whole day, but cannot keep her confined for much longer – relents instead to following the Groggy One around the village making sure she doesn’t get light headed and fall off a roof, or something. She brings Eivor all the sweets she can eat, mops her brow, bundles her in blankets and furs. Ignores the whining – “I’m not whining, Randvi!” – from the fearless, grumpy drengr now as tired and weak as a kitten – “I’m not a kitten, either!”.

Inevitably, Randvi gets the sickness too, but is much more quiet about it. Eivor is a dutiful nurse in return, keeps her company through the days of coughing and headaches and the nights of no sleep, deals with all the villagers wants and needs in Randvi’s stead.

They do make a very good team.

***************

Their freedom was still new, then. Sigurd had given his blessing, but the clan was another matter – it was so soon after Randvi’s divorce. Would they agree, would they judge? They were a forgiving people, but…the idea was still somewhat daunting.

So they’d kept separate beds, and tried to keep themselves to private moments. The rush of blood to their heads that they felt at first, at the beginning, simmered now, a quiet ebb beneath their skin. It was nice just to be close, to brush hands and murmur sweet things between kisses in the dim light of the map room.

But then, there were times when it got too much, when the need was too great – Eivor gone for longer than planned, Randvi pent up and wild from being in the map room too long, each missing the other - and…

One day, Holger spotted them on the alliance table. So that was that, really.

It turns out, after the rumour had spread, most of the clan had already known. Despite their secrecy, despite them being careful; it was obvious on their faces, no matter the distance between their bodies. They’d been welcomed at that evenings spontaneous feast with cheers and congratulations.

So they cement their relationship: Randvi welcomes Eivor into her space, into her bed, into her heart completely. They can walk hand-in-hand through the village in the summer rain, and disappear on hunting trips whenever they please, returning without any game, just grins and askew clothing. When Eivor is in Ravensthorpe, normally she is beside Randvi - they come as a pair. Kissing in front of the children normally earns cries of outrage, and in front of the raiders gets Eivor ribbed mercilessly. Not that it stops them.

They are happy, content.

******************************

The third object on Randvi's shelf is something Eivor had been keeping in her supplies for a while.

"I couldn't give it to you." She admits, as they sit by the fire in the longhouse, sides pressed close. The evening meal is drawing to a close, the villagers mopping the gravy from their plates and talking quietly amongst themselves. It is spring, the nights still fresh when the sun goes down – all the more reason to stay in the longhouse, pressed against the warmth of another.

Randvi had found the silver brooch that morning, tucked between the pages of a book about plants that Valka had given her. She suspects Eivor had left the brooch there much before her finding it – she hadn’t needed to touch the book for months. But then Eivor had gone raiding, and returned having found a pretty, unusual flower, and questions to what it might be.

Courageous drengr, shy in the face of this love of hers. Randvi glows with how much she loves her in return.

“Why not, darling?”

“Because you wouldn’t have been able to wear it, without someone asking of its origin.” Eivor says, and her eyes drift to Sigurd, drinking ale with his fellow raiders.

He is a staple among them, again. In the fallout of Norway, and after his renunciation, Sigurd had drifted from the clan for a time. Worried, Eivor had searched for him, and found him out in the woods beyond the burial grounds.

She’d watched silently as Sigurd sparred with the trees and dummies stolen from Hytham, watched him fail and miss and snarl in frustration. He’d always been stronger with his right hand, and the axe in his left now looked cumbersome. He got it stuck in a branch, once, struggled to free it. Scarred the earth when he missed a swipe, overbalanced and fell. Eivor watched him endure, get back up, again and again.

It had felt…personal, this trial. Too raw with desperate emotion that she could not understand herself. She did not intervene.

For weeks when Sigurd quietly left the village, Eivor would follow, hidden. And each time Sigurd was a little stronger, a little quicker and more balanced, a little more healed. His dexterity improved, growing used to his single arm. Eventually, when Sigurd appeared confident, more his cocking self again, Eivor revealed herself – with encouragement, and an offer.

Sigurd spend the following weeks training the children, proving himself, before then starting to spar with the other raiders. Finally, he faced Eivor.

He is building his own house, down by the docks, with the materials he has earned from his raids. Eivor had said seeing him fight again had brought forgotten fire to his eyes - even one armed, he had been magnificent! They are siblings once more, no longer guarded or antagonistic. Randvi is happy for them both.

But when he hadn’t been so amicable, he would have seen Eivor’s gift as a challenge, an outrage. Randvi understands why Eivor had hidden it from him, and from her.

“It’s beautiful.” Eivor ducks her head to hide her smile a little. Randvi notices this about her – how she can be brash and clever with her opponents, but is quietly shy with Randvi. She cares. “Help me put it on?”

“Of course.”

It is an intricate, delicate thing, spiralling threads of silver woven together, holding little shiny stones that glisten in the light. Randvi wears the brooch for weeks, finds herself absently reaching up to touch it - normally whenever she thinks of Eivor.

But one day, the join in the silver grows weak – the maker was obviously not as good a craftsman as Gunnar – and Randvi is a little heartbroken, but decides to put it to one side until she can ask the blacksmith to fix it for her. It is low down on her list of things to do, however - the villagers always come first – and so she keeps it safe next to the shell and the feather box, until it’s place just seems to be there, glimmering silver.

***************

The forth trinket is a rock. An actual rock.

Bandits had attacked the settlement, in all their folly. It had been nightfall, quiet. Too quiet.

Randvi and Eivor had been walking the village together, fingers entwined as they wandered, stars glittering above them. They had left the revelry of the feast early to spend time alone. Eivor cheeks are a little flushed from ale, and Randvi feels a little slow in the mind from it, a simple, pleasant tranquillity.

The village around them is constantly evolving and growing - new awnings for shops, new fences to hold greater herds of cattle and sheep. Randvi talks about what she plans to do tomorrow, and Eivor tells tales of her latest raid, which she had returned from this afternoon.

Maybe that’s why the bandits strike then. The raiders are tired, many already retired to their homes. Ravensthorpe is easy pickings.

Midway through a comment about how Birna had fallen on her face, drunk on mead and loud and clumsy for it, Eivor grows quiet. Her gaze drifts towards the woods.

“What is it, my love?” Randvi asks, and stills as well, ears straining to hear. It is too quiet, not even a scurrying mouse. Like the calm before a storm. Synin caws from above them.

“Intruders!” Eivor snarls, and all at once is charging towards the trees, unsheathing her axes as she runs.

Randvi is not too far behind. But Randvi is a strategist, and really, diving headlong into the fray is not the best idea when you do not know your enemy and are tired already from a day of fighting (Even if you are the Wolf-Kissed). So Randvi grabs for her horn first, sending a bellowing song throughout the settlement, before chasing Eivor across the bridge into the trees.

Suddenly the night is not so quiet.

Already there are bodies on the floor. Eivor is yelling over the clash of metal and shields. Randvi starts picking off the circling bandits distracted by Eivor’s display, knocking them to the ground with her hammer before finishing them with her axe. In the chaos of twenty attackers, Eivor is swinging and cleaving her way through the masses, and behind her Randvi hears the thunder of feet, battle cries - the tired raiders risen to fight again.

Really, these silly bandits made a mistake. There is never a good time to attack Ravensthorpe.

Even fighting tired, the bandits fall quickly. Randvi pushes her hair out of her eyes, and feels that she’s left a trail of blood across her cheek. She manages to fight her way beside Eivor, blood pounding in her ears, and is rewarded by a maniacal grin when the Wolf-Kissed sees her.

A second later she has to – quick! - side-step when Eivor brushes passed to descend on a man sneaking up behind Randvi. He’s dead before he hits the ground, and Eivor rises again, blood splattered and chest heaving and this will never not take Randvi’s breath away. They don’t often get to fight besides one another. It’s exhilarating!

Enemies surround them. They spin together like a dance, ducking and moving out of each other’s way to keep their flanks guarded, an impenetrable moving fortress in the centre of the clearing. The bandits start to think better of it, divert their focus, and then the two ravens have to dive after them, chopping at their heals to bring them down. Dwolfg appears at one point to savage someone, arrows rain – Petra and Wallace, lending aide - and the bandits start shouting in a panic. Turn, flee.

“Cowards!” Eivor bellows. “Let us show them the might of ravens!”

They charge as one, they fight, they annihilate the bandits.

Amongst the aftermath, bodies littering the woods, raiders congratulating each other and wiping off their blades, Eivor turns to Randvi with a glint in her eye. She looks wild and achingly beautiful, if a little disgusting with someone else’s blood suspiciously close to her mouth. Randvi sheaths her weapons, and walks to her, breath slowing steadily as the fire in her blood cools.

“Well fought, my love.” She says, reaching for the drengr who takes her hand without a seconds thought. Synin lands somewhere nearby, starts pecking out an eye, and Dwolfg is making happy, gross noises behind them. Eivor’s gaze takes in the battlefield, expression one of complete pride as she watches her fellow raiders and clansmen catching their breaths, before giving Randvi her complete focus:

“All the better for you being at my side.”

“I know.” Randvi says lilting and smug. She swings their joined hands a little, feeling playful. “At least one of us has to handle the difficult ones.” She finishes, and Eivor’s laugh comes quick, light and genuine. She leans in close, then, looking a little more smirky. Randvi grins back up at her, reaches to wrap a hand around the drengr’s neck, draw her in even more.

“Is that so, little fox.” The answering kiss is electric with residual adrenaline. Eivor drops her axe haphazardly – Gunnar, yanking a spear from a body some distance away, will scold her for that – and grasps Randvi around her middle to lift her off the ground. Randvi gasps a little, but holds on, grinning into the kiss and wrapping her arms around Eivor’s shoulders tighter.

Around them, there is a sudden cheer, excessive amounts of clapping, and wolf-whistling. The kiss dissolves into laughter, and Randvi pulls away when back on her own feet, but doesn’t break eye contact.

It’s probably that, as the moment passes, and Eivor steps back, that causes it.

That, and the rock.

It’s the size of a human head, wedged firm into the ground. There’s a little bit of moss on it, grass growing taller up its edges.

It catches Eivor’s heel and she stumbles backwards, flails a little, arms wheeling.

Randvi grabs for her, clasps an arm and pulls her back up before she hits the ground. They blink at each other, for a moment, before the whole forest is loud with laughter again.

“Easy there, Wolf-Kissed!” Sigurd yells from across the clearing, and Randvi grins at the woman in question, the words taken from her mouth.

Eivor rolls her eyes, smile lopsided, feet settled again on the ground. She spares a glance at the rock that almost felled her. “I’m my defence, I have just drunk a lot of mead.”

“Battle drunk, too, I think.” Randvi teases.

“Drunk on you.” Eivor concludes, and gathers her up again.

***************

Up on the shelf, the rock sits, heavy enough to strain the wood supporting it. It’s still got the moss, but Eivor has carved runes into it.

I fell for you, it says.

Randvi had laughed when she found it sat upon the Jarlskona’s throne one day – had continued laughing when Sunniva had asked her, worriedly, what was wrong. Too good an opportunity to miss, Randvi had teased Eivor about it: how she must be stubborn like a rock, or weighty like a rock, Rock Skulled.

But all torment had been stopped when Eivor had held her gaze, and beckoned her backward towards their chambers, smile promising.

******************************

The fifth is another shiny piece of jewellery. A rainbow necklace, clasped in silver, that glistens all the colours of the world.

Eivor had been gone for a long while, longer than normal. Randvi had been informed by her scouts that it was nothing to worry about, but it didn’t stop the feeling festering in her gut, making her breath short, her body twitchy and alert. 

She rises early, pets Dwolfg – who is also missing Eivor, and has taken to sleeping in her space in Randvi’s bed. Randvi doesn’t mind that much, having grown used to the wolf by now – he is a good source of warmth, if nothing else. But he does still unnerve her, a little, despite Eivor’s endeavours to push that thought from her mind. A while ago, wearing a devil-may-care grin, the drengr had demonstrated the wolf’s placidity by hugging the shaggy beast without a modicum of fear—

“He’s a softy, Randvi.”

Randvi had hummed in mild-agreement. “Reminds me of someone.”—

Animals, like people, seem to flock to Eivor. Even Nali, when not on the raiding ship, has taken to sleeping on a specific pillow that sits in what used to be Randvi’s chair. Randvi is surrounded by white fur; finds it on her clothes late into the day. Despite his shyness, the tame fox Dandelion Puff – and that’s a story Randvi would not believe if she was not certain that Eivor tells her no lies - will often sneak in, a little nervous, but chattering for Eivor all the same. And when present at the settlement, aloof Synin sleeps in the rafters.

Soon, Eivor’s grey mare will also bunk with them.

But anyway: Randvi rises early, commiserates with the animals about Eivor still not being home from her travels, and makes herself busy with village tasks until late into the evening. By then, she is too tired to even dream, so she sleeps and doesn’t worry that Eivor has been delayed – she’s not captured, she’s not dead in a ditch somewhere, she’s not she’s not—!

Randvi is aware of her fears, knows they are part of having a warrior as a lover. But it doesn’t stop her insides twisting unpleasantly, her body feeling heavy when the horn still does not blow and Eivor still does not gallop dramatically into camp.

Days pass. Randvi makes sure to ask Yanli to source more salt for Rowan, and makes sure Telka’s hut is repaired after the last storm removed a few of its roof tiles – wouldn’t want the ale being watered down by the next rain. She organises the books she reorganised the day prior, walks around the village three times to try and calm her nerves until Gunnar beckons her, and she and Brigid have tea together. Trying to figure out what the other woman is saying does distract her from her worrying, somewhat.

Minutes pass, hours pass, days pass, and Randvi waits.

It’s different now. The closer they become, the more the distance makes her ache.

Sigurd gives her a comprehending look, when she finds him sitting at the docks. Eivor hadn’t travelled by longship, this time, and the raiders are having a well-deserved break with their families, but being by the river gives her a little piece of calm. She sits with her former husband, feet dangling close to the water.

“She will come back.” Sigurd says, at length. “She always comes back.”

They sit, companionably, trading idle conversation. They are friends, now, settled in their more separate relationship. They lead the clan together when Eivor is gone, and Sigurd has mellowed, become more introspective and fair. Randvi does not mind him being her right hand, and she hopes Sigurd doesn’t mind her being his.

Until Eivor returns, anyway.

It grows cold, and Sigurd leaves – the cold makes his aches hurt more than it used to – but Randvi stays upon the docks, relishing the occasional shiver to distract herself. She has exhausted her to-do list, asked villages for help despite them not wanting any. The alliance room is as in order as she can make it, and she’s currently in the process of picking stray white hair from her trousers. Dwolfg’s, or Nali’s?

There is no horn. Randvi hears the footsteps behind her, unique even amongst the slowing bustle of the dock, and that sound is greeting enough. Even, sure, confident – a little heavy with the weight of armour. She’s heard those footsteps a hundred times waiting for good news.

She stands and turns without even having to look, feels the smile stretching across her face as her insides unconstrict, lightness in her step, all but falls into Eivor’s open arms.

“You’re late.” She says petulantly, but her smile takes the sting out of her words, hides her worries. No place for them now Eivor is home.

The drengr folds into her, buries her face in Randvi’s neck, squeezes her a touch too tightly, armour straps digging into Randvi’s collarbone. She sags into the embrace, tired and relieved to be home again. “Sorry,” Eivor starts, muffled by foxes fur, unwilling to have any space between them. “I heard some interesting information on the journey home, that I could not leave uninvestigated.”

Randvi turns her head to kiss the blonde woman’s cheek, rocks them slightly to try and rouse her, and is glad when Eivor lifts her head with a quiet smile, eyes glowing with warmth, and finds her lips instead.

Will this feeling ever dim? Will having Eivor back, safe and well, ever make Randvi not completely happy, at peace again, as if nothing else in the world exists? Just them, pressed together on the wood of the docks.

“What did you find?” The strategist asks, resting her forehead gently against Eivor’s, sharing breath. Eivor leans back and away, and Randvi feels herself grip tighter around the warriors waist – no, don’t go. Eivor flicks her eyes to Randvi’s, quickly, a knowing smile spreading across her lips as she reaches beneath the front of her tunic, beneath the armour and fur of her cape. She pulls from around her neck a chain of silver. And a jewel of a rainbow.

“This, among other things.” She says, and Randvi is transfixed. The gem catches the light and sparkles like ocean water - it looks a bit magical, ethereal.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I think so.” The drengr grins, and reaches back to unclasp the chain, bringing it to tie around Randvi’s neck instead.

Randvi wears the necklace often, but it’s true home is on her shelf amongst its fellow gifts, given by her love with only love it’s reason.

******************************

The last gift does not belong on the shelf, and Randvi wears it with pride and adoration.

***************

A horn blows from the docks. Randvi, heart skipping a beat, turns her head away from gazing at the shelf – away from yellow feathers and sea shells and shiny objects, that stupid, hilarious rock. The raiders have returned.

She folds the papers in her hands - ones that she’d been distracted from, anyway. She makes herself unhurried. As much as she wants to fly down to the docks to join Eivor, to revel in the raiders tales and good humour, she know others will want to do the same. She is blessed, and will have all the time in the world later.

Also, Eivor’s ego is big enough as it is, and her teasing matches it. Sometimes, Randvi is better to make the Wolf-Kissed wait for her.

She hears the children scream passed the door of the longhouse, shouting excitedly, and the wolf-dog, who had howled a reply to the horn some moments before, scampers after them.

There’s just something about Eivor, like moths to flames. Randvi didn’t stand a chance, did she?

She tidies up, and only then does she leave her quarters. The village is a hive of good cheer as she walks towards the docks. The spoils, large heavy chests and silver in bags, stacks of wood and reels of fabric, are being quickly unloaded and separated out. Warriors are shedding their heavy armour, greeting family with warmth and love.

Eivor is being swarmed by the children. One hangs off each leg, and another gripps her hand, all looking up at her with eyes wide with excitement and sheer admiration. “What happened on the raid, Eivor? ”

“Yes, how many men did you kill?”

“How many chests of silver did you find?!”

The warrior is laughing her low, contented chuckle at them, resting her free hand on young Knud’s shoulder. She glances at Randvi, meets her smile with answering warmth, shrugs her shoulders a little at her predicament. Randvi laughs lightly in response, folds her arms and waits. Like moths to flames, warm and welcomed.

“I will tell all of my tales once our work is done. Why don’t you three little warriors help us to unload the ship? We’ll need all of your strength to move the heaviest chests!”

The children cheer again, and – with maybe a little shaking and prizing to persuade them – leave when a nearby raider beckons them to help. Eivor watches them go with a soft smile, before turning to Randvi, the same sort of love and pride in her expression, but somehow amplified. By the gods, Randvi loves her.

Eivor says, quiet, sure: “My love.”

“Welcome back.” Randvi feels a little light headed with her own excitement and adoration; it’s making her a little breathless. “And all in one piece, too.” She manages to tease as she looks Eivor up and down. She grins and reaches forward to press her hands against drengrs chest, at the same time as Eivor wraps her own hands around Randvi’s waist. They kiss, softly, can feel each other’s smiles. It’s simple, and perfect.

“Welcome home.” Randvi says again - possibly a little brain-muddled from the kiss - and pulls away the barest minimum, hand gripping onto the warriors armour straps.

Eventually, they must step apart to help. As love drunk as they are, there are still jobs to do, and they will have more time, later.

Randvi goes to direct the children flittering about - mostly getting in the way, but so desperate to help. When she looks up and tries to find Eivor in the crowd, she spots her by Gunnar’s forge, talking to the blacksmith. Both their heads are bowed close, a conversation only for them.

“Come on, Randvi.” Says Knud.

“Yeah! Stop daydreaming about Eivor.” Sylvi adds boldly, and Randvi splutters, sends a glare in her direction, but the girl is already darting away with her friends, laughing.

***************

Later comes after dark, after the feasting and the ale, after the stories, dramatic and sometimes a little exaggerated, as all the best ones are. The Raven Clan is as settled and as happy as Randvi had ever wished them to be. They’ve all worked hard for this; it’s nice to enjoy it.

“I was thinking.” Eivor says lowly, as they lay close, shrouded by blankets and furs and pressed skin to skin. Her breath whispers against Randvi’s bare shoulder, words vibrating through her chest where Randvi’s head rests. “Tomorrow, we should go exploring.”

“Another adventure?” Randvi questions, the bloom of happiness quick to rise, that warm fuzzy feeling that’s a near constant when in Eivor’s presence. She twists her head to find icy blue eyes warm with affection, beams back at them when the drengr reaches to brush loose red hair from her face. “I’d like that.” It has been a long while since they’d stepped away together; Randvi always feels she is best to stay and keep the settlement in order, takes great pride in the part she has played to help it expand and grow. Now though, she is satisfied that her work is almost complete, enough that maybe she should take time for herself again…

Eivor hums, her fingers trailing from Randvi’s hair to her cheek, gaze a little speculative, completely focused. The trail finishes at Randvi’s lips, and a shiver goes through the red head as she kisses Eivor’s fingertip gently. Eivor’s gaze has gone lidded.

Words no longer needed, they talk with their bodies.

***************

The next morning, excited, Randvi rises early. Her body is used to it, she supposes, sitting up with a stretch, the buzz of anticipation making her twitchy, telling her to move, start the day. Eivor, however, does not appreciate being disturbed by the movement – tired from her raiding, or just unwilling to relinquish the tranquillity of rest. She blinks sleepily as Randvi stands from the bed, grumbles something under her breath. Then reaches out, swift like a cat, and abruptly drags the red head back to her.

“Eivor!”

“Not yet.” The drengr groans, shifts and rolls over to get comfortable again, despite Randvi being very much awake and more wriggly, less malleable to Eivor’s whims. “Don’t leave yet. Warm.”

Randvi sighs, relents willingly, snuggles back under the covers. She wraps herself around the blonde’s back until Eivor is sighing contentedly and relaxed again. Randvi presses a kiss between her shoulders, smile more of a grin.

“You are a sap, Wolf-Kissed.” Because Eivor could rise at a moments notice if the horn called her, she’s just currently acting like a child for a few more moments of peace.

Randvi can appreciate why, though.

***************

Mid-morning, breakfast eaten and extras packed in saddlebags for the journey, the pair bid goodbye to Sigurd, stood by the end of the longhouse. They mount Eivor’s horse, Randvi settled behind, gripping unabashedly and revelling in Eivor’s slightly reddened cheeks when Sigurd raises a teasing eyebrow. As they head out of the village they meet Gunnar who is taking a morning walk away from his forge with Brigid. Eivor waves, a little haltingly, to him, then kicks the horse into a trot. The pair call back with much more enthusiasm. Petra is preparing a truly humongous boar, Tekla’s workshop is a hive of activity, and Tarben’s bakery smells extra sweet.

They’re passing through into the trees to the east when Eivor turns her head slightly.

“Do you trust me?”

“A sillier question I have never heard.” Randvi replies, quickly, teasing lilt to her voice and Eivor’s answering chuckle and squeeze of her hand around her waist makes her warm all over.

“Would you do this for me, then? Close your eyes.” Randvi has complied before even realising, though her eyebrow is quirked behind Eivor’s back.

“If you mean to scare me, I will tell you now, that is not an easy task.”

Eivor’s voice speaks of her own grin. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“Everything sounds like a challenge to you, drengr.”

“Not today, though.” She squeezes Randvi’s hand again, and the red head clenches her eyes tighter and relaxes into the weird floating feeling of the horse beneath her picking up canter, finding her balance in the dark. She leans forward to hide her face in Eivor’s fur. “This surprise hopefully wont scare you…” She hears, muffled.

“Now, I am intrigued.”

They – well, Randvi doesn’t know where they go, or what they see. She listens to the horses hooves grow louder on a paved road, then quieten as they leave it again. They cross a bridge, at some point, water bubbling beneath. Synin caws above them, there are barks from a fox nearby.

She could almost drift to sleep again, warm and content, if it weren’t for the building excitement and questions in her head: where are you taking me, Eivor? And why the secrecy?

But what she said had been true – she trusts Eivor more than she trusts herself. To steer her right, to keep her grounded, to calm the storms that cloud her mind, sometimes – too much to do, too many people to help, how can I do all this? They are similar, in that respect.

They ride for a long while, especially since Randvi can’t sightsee to judge their journey. She just enjoys the closeness, runs her fingers over the nicks and calluses of Eivors hand intertwined with her own. Eventually, the horse slows as they rise on the path, comes to a distinct standstill, and Eivor shifts her shoulders to rouse her. “Randvi.” She says, softly.

Randvi blinks her eyes open, the glare of the sun blinding for a few seconds, shadow spots in her vision. She leans back, looks about them.

They are on a stone bridge. Next to them, rising from the water, is the Sunken Tower.

This place – oh, this place! Where Randvi had taken the plunge, those many months ago, so high up in the sky and so high on love and life (and ale!) that the words had poured from her lips unbidden, quick and unsure, but hopeful. She’d had a taste of freedom, and wondered how far she could push it, how much she could ask of Eivor, before she had to go back to her map room and ignore her feelings again.

This place.

“Eivor…?”

“We should go to the top.” The drengr says, definitely not looking back at Randvi, eyes focused on their summit. “Like we did, before.”

Randvi… Randvi doesn’t know quite what to think, but this must mean something. This must be a good thing, surely? She nods, hums decidedly to herself, and swings from the saddle to look at Eivor whose—sat a little rigid, a little tense. The smile the drengr offers is a touch guarded, unsure.

“Yes.” Randvi says, certain, and offers her hand to help Eivor down.

They climb. There’s something about the physical exertion that makes Randvi feel light, that and the bubbling excitement, the rising adrenaline in her veins. What could this mean? This place, Eivor’s guardedness? What is Randvi missing?

There is a chest, upon the highest platform of the tower, one that Randvi does not remember. She expects Eivor to open it, as curious as the warrior is with her quick fingers. But what Eivor actually does, once she pulls herself onto the ledge, is quickly flicker her gaze upon it before looking away, fascinated by the view. Seemingly uninterested.

Randvi however, is intrigued by it. “Are there snakes in there, do you think?” She questions, hoping for some tell. Some way to loosen Eivor’s sudden distance.

“Ah.” Eivor laughs quickly, shifts her stance. “I’d say not. They much prefer pots.”

“You seem well acquainted.”

“Sadly, yes.” Eivor looks back at Randvi, the lines of her grimace telling of harrowing memories. “They strike quick and painful, needles for teeth, and the lasting effects are not pleasant.”

“We had better be careful, then.” The red head says, feeling a little wild and flippant.

But neither of them move. Eivor bites her lip, flexes her hands held tight by her sides. Fearless drengr. Randvi would be worried, but…

She summons the courage: “I’d…I’d like for you to open it, Randvi.”

“Eivor…?” Randvi is confused, cannot get a read, doesn’t have enough information to see where this will lead. Unknown territory on a map. But she’s not scared by this. Eivor is out of sorts, but…Randvi trusts her, completely and wholly.

“Please, just…”

Bemused, Randvi does as instructed, flipping the latches and—

Not such a random chest as Randvi thought. She hefts the heavy wooden lid up, eyeing the insides carefully for any unwanted wildlife. No such danger awaits her.

Inside, there is treasure. Sat upon a blanket of red material, intricately patterned, are two arm rings. They are silver, engraved with rune promises, with a figure head at each end – a tiny moulded wolf and fox, forelegs reaching for the other. It’s fine, intricate work, replicated perfectly. A matching pair.

These are promise rings.

Randvi feels her breath stutter out of her, eyes widening. She reaches forward to brush her fingers along the engravings in some sort of trance, coming to rest upon the canine figures at the end.

Wolf-Kissed. Little fox.

“Eivor.” She manages, quietly, because the drengr hasn’t so much as moved a muscle behind her, hasn’t breathed, still as a roman statue. When Randvi turns in her crouched position, and looks up at her, Eivor’s face is just as stone like, frozen in an expression of pure apprehension. She manages a quirk of her lips, a twitch of her head, takes a hesitant step forward.

“Randvi, do you. Do you know what I mean by this?” She asks, and Randvi’s heart beats hard.

It is what she thinks. A matching set, a joint promise.

Meant to be.

Her cheeks actually hurt from the grin that spreads across them. Her eyes feel wet, suddenly. She’s full of too much happiness to contain.

“Of course!” She turns back in a flash, picks up the rings and then stands to face Eivor. Her drengr, her lover. Her wife. “I am more yours.” She presents one of the rings, other clasped tight to her chest.

Eivor blinks, dumbly, mouth falling open slightly. She looks shocked, as if it this wasn’t her plan entirely. As if it is Randvi making the proposal. “I adore you.” She says, finally, and they meet in the middle as they always seem to do, hold on.

On top of the tower, two halves become whole.

***************

Gunnar cries as he embraces them both on their return that evening. He says the rings are his finest work.

**Author's Note:**

> Poetic license in abundance! Just enjoy the fluff, ask no questions XD
> 
> So, my theory was: let’s try and write a 5 – 1 fic. Eivor finds five things to give Randvi, then gets one made by Gunnar. Don’t know why the rock appeared in my mind, but I wanted to add something funny (there is a rock in the game, it's just definitely not this one!)
> 
> Also, because I feel like I need to put this idea out there: “You and I”, by Skerryvore. That’s apparently become my Eivor x Randvi song, and was played a lot while writing this.


End file.
